ScreenFloat: Keep Your Screenshots on Top

Do you often find yourself switching back and forth between windows just to check back on a particular piece of information? Do you want to be reminded of something that you’d like to do by keeping an image of it handy? Well, this and other problems could be easily fixed with an app, right?

The app that we are reviewing today is called ScreenFloat, and it is meant to bring new functionality to screenshots by making them visible at all time. Keep on reading to find out more about it!

Getting Started

ScreenFloat

ScreenFloat is a simple piece of software that can help you take screenshots and keep them on top of any other window. It is good for any type of work that requires you to go back between two windows to copy the content of one to the other.

That’s the use for this app that I imagine most people would find handy, although I’m sure you could find many more creative means for it…

How It Works

In Action

ScreenFloat needs to be open for you to take advantage of it. I was expecting this kind of app to run on the menu bar, but it actually runs like any other app on your dock. Once you have it open, you can take a screenshot by pressing Cmd+Shift+2.

A small pointer cross will appear, and you’ll be able to select any area on the screen that you’d like to take a screen grab of. Once you select it, your screenshot will pop up, floating above any other windows that you have open, so that you never lose sight of it.

Working with Screenshots

Settings

While the app is very simple to use, you can also dig a little deeper and explore the settings behind each window. From these settings (which can be found at the right top corner of your screenshot), you can tell your screenshot to stop floating and behave like a normal window, or send it to another app, among other common features like copying, deleting and hiding your screenshot.

You can also move your screenshot by clicking on it and dragging it, or close it with the button on the left top corner. When you close a screenshot, it will not be lost forever – it’s stored in the app’s library.

Storing Screenshots

Library

As I mentioned, instead of deleting your screenshots when you close them, ScreenFloat will save them for you in its library. In this library you can add tags to your screenshots and even arrange those tags into smart albums.

From here, you also have access to the information of each of your screenshots and can send several of them to another app like Evernote or an image editor.

If you double click any of your stored screenshots, it will once again pop up as a floating window, so that you can go back to working with it. You can also delete any screenshot from here, if you’d like.

A feature I found pretty handy is that you can make any of your files a floating screenshot without having to open it and taking a screenshot of it yourself. Just go under the “File” menu and choose “Make New Shot From File”. Also, there’s a “Work Mode” feature under the settings that makes your floating screenshots hide when your pointer goes over them.

Is It Worth $7.99?

Maybe. It depends on how much use you think you’d have for it. If you just want a conventional screenshot tool, you might want to take a look at a little tool called “Grab” under your utilities folder.

If you often find yourself going back and forth between apps to refer to a piece of information, then you might find this app to be a fantastic time saver.

Personally, I can’t think of many occasions when I’d have a specific need for ScreenFloat. I usually just take advantage of the app switcher (Cmd+Tab) for quickly switching between windows to copy information from one window to the other, but it’s usually distracting having each window pop in and out while you are working.

The idea for this app is great. ScreenFloat itself is also very well designed, offering plenty of features while still keeping the interface simple. Do you think you could find an app like this useful? Would you be willing to pay for an app like this? Share your opinion in the comments!

Sounds like an overengineered solution. All I would need is a shortcut or service to open any image or text from the clipboard in a floating window that will stay put until it is closed. That way I can float my own screenshots (captured straight to the clipboard, a shortcut I use all the time) or text from a variety of sources. Would this be easy to make?

Soyek

I second that! Same thing came to my mind while reading the review. It could actually be a part of a clipboard manager. I’d love the feature implemented in ClipMenu :P

http://www.eternalstorms.at Matthias

Hi.
I’m the developer of ScreenFloat. Thought I’d join in here ;)

ScreenFloat comes with the functionality to create these floating shots from the clipboard (whether there’s text or an image in there).

It also comes with a system service to create shots from files in Finder or selected text in any Cocoa app.

Kindest regards,
Matthias

jeezus

Another sub-database genre app. At least this one doesn’t have a menu icon to show that it’s important…

//adrusi.com/ Adrian

I see the use for this, but I replicate the result using a mix of the built in screenshot functions, Preview.app and Afloat. Not as great of an interface or as integrated of a workflow, but it works, and I don’t think it’s worth $7.99 to make it better.

SomeOtherGuy

Best. App. Ever.
Thank you for the tip – tested for a minute, bought right away!

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